Secret Crush

This last weekend while I was enjoying a slumber party with my closest friends (which incidentally is a sentence I'm not sure a lady in her 30's should ever be typing, but still...) we came to the realisation we all harboured a secret crush. Who was the object of our desires you are probably wondering. Well, I shall tell you....

Gordon Ramsey

See, that's why it's a 'secret' crush.

We know he is not an orthodox hunk by any standards (and he's not about to replace David Beckham as the numero uno object of my affections, behind Rob obviously!) but their is just a certain something about Mr Ramsey that makes him quite yummy indeed.

Yes, despite his endless swearing and wrinkled brow and the fact that I have read his biography and learned that he wasn't at the births of any of his 4 children or even changed a single nappy just because he didn't really fancy it. (I wish childbirth and nappies were an optional parenting extra for me too, alas not so though!)

So are we the only girls in the world harbouring this crush or is the rest of female civilisation keeping it a secret too? Spill the beans.

Sisters, Sisters.....

Check us out! Me and my sisters.

Can you see the family resemblance? No?

Well that would be because we're not actually sisters at all.

BUT, if I could choose myself some sisters from all my friends here (obviously I'd choose myself a completely different set of sisters across the pond!) these are the girls I'd go with.

Without a doubt.

(Lisa, Dawn, Heidi and me)

You are probably wondering why are these girls special enough to have such an honour bestowed upon them.

Simple, they just are.

In the last ten years,

We have been housemates,

We have been shoulders to cry on,

We have been bridesmaids and spoken at each others weddings,

We have managed to produce 9 of the most attractive children ever seen (though our husbands were slightly useful in that endeavour too!)

We have loved like sisters,

We have fought like sisters,

We have laughed like sisters,

and we have forgiven like sisters.

Sadly after spending a decade living in such close proximity two of our number are leaving. (Rude, I know!)

Lisa is headed to Utah with husband Stuart where he is going to be doing his PhD and she is gonna pretty much live a life of reproduction, quilting and shopping. She is the most technically challenged person I know so I fear Blogdom is sadly beyond her. I hope she surprises me!

And Heidi is heading southward to Solihull (only two hours away) but far enough away to feel sorry for ourselves.

A stroll down a decades memory lane......

(Slightly mutilated picture)

So to mark the end of an era we booked ourselves into a Travelodge last night and stayed up late eating Chinese food, laughing, looking at old pictures and talking.

Bizarrely when given an opportunity for a sublime good nights sleep we stayed up until 4am chatting (with Lisa passing out around 2am, she was always the lightweight!) and learned that we're just too old to survive on 4 hours of sleep anymore. Though it was the norm for us all back in the day. (8pm the next day and I am truly the walking dead!)
We did some of this.....
and this......
and this......
and even some of this!

But mostly we just wondered why we had never done this before and regularly!

Game, Set and Match

Thomas in recent months has developed an occasional preference in asking for cartoons to be turned off (gasp!) so that he can watch the golf, cricket or more recently the Tennis.

Eli isn't thrilled at all by his older brothers change in TV viewing preference. I, on the hand prefer it, not because I am an avid sports fan (because I am not) but because frankly hearing sports in the background is vastly better than hearing the Wonder pets theme tune, Dora shouting or that ultra annoying Ruby (from Max & Ruby) who is actually the first and only cartoon character that I have ever felt homicidal tendencies towards.

So, earlier this week we had the Tennis on as requested by Thomas. He was avidly watching and I was busying myself in the kitchen, pretending to clean or something.

When I heard him say, "I just saw you on the TD (we have issues with V pronunciation at the moment), Mummy!"

Now this is Wimbledon he is watching so I'm thinking who can he have seen from the Celebrity A-list in the crowd that in his innocent childlike way he may have confused me with?

Angelina Jolie, Liv Tyler, Eva Mendes? (Yes, I kid myself!)

Obviously the scope of my look-a-likies is huge because I am thinking pretty much any tall woman with brown hair is gonna be fair replica of me in the crowd at Wimbledon to a three year old.

Slightly amused, "Did I look nice?"

Casually, "No."

So I look around to see who my far uglier twin is that he can see on the TD and who is it?

Serena Williams.

Now Serena Williams is a woman, as am I.

All similarity ends there.

Later on when Leyton Hewitt was playing Thomas commented that his dad was on TD now.

Rob and Leyton Hewitt I admit do look slightly more similar than Serena and I. But only slightly.

Now, if only we had Serena and Leyton's cash.

So I am off to sign Rob and I up to one of those look-a-like agencies, apparently we'd get a lot of work amongst the three year old Tennis enthusiast crowd.

Look I Got a New Arm!

Today is the delightful day we went from this........(read all about how that occurred here!) To this
Do you think he looks happy about it?

Hands up if you like having two functioning arms!

We all went on this little trip to the hospital. I was of course thrilled. Our clothes were coordinated, we were clean, I had a husband in tow and not a single trashy tabloid in sight. We were the picture of perfect family bliss that I failed so spectacularly at being on our last trip.

I had spent the last 26 days explaining to Thomas that when they take the plaster off they'll use some special scissors to do the job. So you can imagine my joy when I took him into the plaster room only to be briefly glanced at and told that we'd have to wait longer because they needed 3 people, 2 to hold him down and 1 to operate the saw. (Cue screaming in my head as my gift goes into overdrive and I imagine detached limbs and blood shooting out of arteries all over the place, just as well we had to wait longer because I totally needed to sit down.)

So I quickly explained to Thomas that the special scissors weren't really special enough and they were actually going to use a really noisy saw and hoped for the best. Thomas has never been a big fan of white noise. Hairdryer? Terrifying, Blender? Traumatising, Hoover? Petrifying (though my mother in law did once kindly say he was probably only scared of the hoover because he didn't hear it frequently enough, ouch! See I told you she wasn't perfect!)

A nice nurse lady came along and she was prepared to remove his cast while he sat on Rob's knee and I wrestled with Eli. She switched the saw on and I held my breath while Eli shouted over and over 'My turn, my turn!' (they don't wanna miss out on anything the other is doing even if it does involve a saw and possible loss of an appendage) and Thomas reacted like nothing was going on, typical Thomas. The nurse said he was braver than most adults (which would no doubt include me!) that she deals with so promptly rewarded him with stickers. Stickers are the way to any three year old heart!

We went back to see the doctor who discharged us from his care with instruction to avoid any physical activity for 6 more weeks. That is 42 entire days.

Thomas decided to completely disregard this advice after about 17 minutes.

But he is thrilled to have a new arm!

Blogaholic

I have come to the realisation that I have a problem.

Rob oh so innocently happened to enquire how on earth I manage to spend so much time on the Internet (he himself is a frequenter of an entire 5 sites in total, which are:
email,
Sports,
Sports (yes I know I included that twice, it is apparently a big deal),
Facebook and
Internet banking.

I know his enquiry was totally innocent because on Saturday he played Top Spin Tennis (I think he was trying to get into the mood for Wimbledon, after all Rob is as likely to win that particular Grand Slam than any Brit actually competing in it) for approximately 5 hours on his XBOX, so it's not like he's really in a position to judge me on how I invest/waste my time.

My reaction to his question?

Completely dramatic,

Incredibly defensive,

Overly sensitive,

and 100% Pure Ridiculous.

Seriously?!

The tell-tale unmistakable behaviour of a bona fide addict.

Obviously once I had come to terms with the fact that I have developed blog addiction. I heartily apologised (incidentally while he was still playing Tennis) and he graciously forgave me.

I now fully embrace my addiction (and add it happily to my list of deeply cherished things along with chocolate, Pepsi and Reality TV), after all it could be worse, it could be crack!

Just to Clarify.....

This is simply what I am trying to tell the world,Elizabeth & Jessica Wakefield (Thank you Wikipedia for assisting me when my brain sadly failed me): The Sweet Valley Twins
Joel and Benji Madden: The Good Charlotte Bad Boy Twins
Mary-Kate and Ashley: The Disgustingly Stunning and Twig-like Olson Twins
Fred and George: The Ginger Weasley TwinsSchwarzenegger & DeVito: The anything is possible in Hollywood Twins
Thomas and Eli: The most definitely NOT Twins

Not even Irish twins (Who do you think we are Britney and K-Fed?)

Just brothers spaced 16 months apart.

Apparently this fact isn't glaringly obvious!

(Now I just have to figure out how to get this entire post onto an endless supply of T shirts so that I don't have to answer that mundane question a gazillion times each day!)

Chasing Cars

Recently Rob was headhunted (further evidence of how awesome he clearly is) so he is currently idling his days away completing his notice period before he starts his brand new job in Mid-July. So basically for a whole month his days consist of sleeping in late followed by 3 whole hours of work before heading straight back home again. Though some days he does completely skip the 3 hours of work part. What an incredibly tough life, eh?

His new employers kindly gave him £15,000 to go buy himself a new car and so he'd been spending some of his newly acquired free time looking around for the perfect automobile. He finally settled on a very lovely Volkswagen Passat. We love Volkswagen in this house, thank you Germany! (Now those are three words I never imagined uttering in this lifetime!)

Today I had one of those days, you know where you never really get around to brushing your hair and you just wanna wear a big old comfy hoody and count down the hours until (the kids) bedtime? Eli seems to have developed a reflex that enables him to identify just exactly when I am falling into a deep and restful slumber and proceeds to scream his head off. Frankly, I'm not a big fan of it. For his well being and also my own I hope it is a very temporary problem. I'm not a big fan of the piece of art he created on the side of the white bookcase today with a green wax crayon while I turned my back for a whole 12 seconds either (just so you know!). But on the bright side green is at least my favourite colour.

When Rob got home he could clearly tell from my appearance that I wasn't having a terrific parenting day. So when he was leaving to purchase his new car he suggested taking one of the kids or even both along. I immediately envisioned happily strapping both of my angels into his car and waving a fond farewell for an hour or so, then the guilt kicked in and I felt unfair (stupid guilt!) making him take both. So instead I suggested he take Thomas because he'd be the easier child to have on such an errand. When Eli came to the realisation that Rob and Thomas were going somewhere he clearly wasn't invited he decided the best reaction would be complete hysteria. It was obviously effective because somehow one thing led to another and we all ended up going, yep, even me in my over sized hoody, unkempt hair and all. I'm sure I was a visual delight.

While we were waiting for Rob to check he'd locked the front door twelve times (he has a slight OCD issue) Thomas was reporting to me that we were going to get Daddy a new car,

"Daddy needs a new car because this one has rain on it!"

Sadly if we changed our cars every single time they got rained on we'd be flaming living at the VW dealership.

The new car was quickly identified and paid for. It got a definite thumbs up from both kids, Eli who managed to turn the radio on and Thomas who had clambered into the back and secured his seat belt perfectly. I bet those salespeople really love when people take their kids to these places and then let them climb around in the cars like animals.

While we were filling the paperwork Eli was being Eli and Thomas commented that Eli is a 'cheeky monkey' (which is a fairly accurate description) to which Eli responded with a endless stream of monkey noises, which sent Thomas and then Eli into a frenzy of giggles. Neither of them wanted to leave without the brand new car and were more than happy to let the world know of their unhappiness so we had to resort to bribing them with Happy Meals, whoever discovered bribery was a total genius! I salute you!

I expect poor Paolo the salesman really really feels like he earned every single penny of his commission.

Just Average

Not a big shocker because I am pretty sure I am just an average 2000's wife too! Though I did do the ironing once this year (minus all shirts though) so I am clearly improving. Maybe there is hope for me after all!

42 As a 1930s wife, I am Average Take the test!

Why Boys are Best

Now I know you're gonna think I am completely biased in this opinion because I dwell in a testosterone fuelled household (and you may well be a tiny bit right).

Don't get me wrong, I love girls, I actually wanted Thomas to be a girl (it somehow just didn't feel acceptable to be growing a little person with a penis inside me if you know what I mean) and both Rob and I wanted Eli to be a girl (he'd make such a pretty girl after all), in fact as we were going in for the ultrasound to find out the sex Rob pipes up with "If it's not a girl I am gonna be really disappointed!" (no pressure then, thanks buddy!) So we ended up with two boys and despite my initial reservations about me being a suitable candidate to be a 'boy mum' I love it more than words can ever say.

Boys are just brilliant!

Here is my evidence......

I have a friend who has two girls and we went shopping together for summer clothes for our kids. Boys I learned are far easier to dress, they have 4 pairs of shoes,
Sandals,
Trainers,
Wellington boots and
Smart shoes for Sundays.
The four pairs of shoes each have a very specific purpose. They each coordinate simply with the array of denim and shorts that make up a preschool boys wardrobe. I don't have the endless task of finding just the right shoes and accessories that colour coordinate perfectly with each outfit. If it's Sunny the boys wear sandals, if it's rainy they wear boots and so on, everything coordinates beautifully without any effort at all. (Which is ideal because I really love things that require no effort.)

On Sunday one of the teachers in Primary couldn't make it (again) so I filled in for her and taught the 7-8 year old class. Our lesson was on The Good shepherd parable and I prepared a word search in advance just in case we have time left at the end that I needed to fill up (plus it doubled as a handy reminder of what we'd just learned, repetition is the key to learning you know!) the kids divided themselves into two groups, boys versus girls. The boys were all about speed and will to win, the girls weren't concerned at all about finishing first they were more bothered about important matters like using a different colour for every single word they identified to make the word search as pretty as possible. (Much to the boys and my own dismay the girls finished first.)

Last week at the farm with friends all our kids were playing together in the playground. There was this slide with a room at the top and the kids were in there playing house and being silly. We overheard this conversation:

Neve (Aged 4, obsessed with Princesses and Princes) "Come sit with me Eli"
Eli (Aged 2, obsessed with food and Cars) "OK!"
Neve "Would you like some cake?"
Eli "YES!!"
Neve (Passing Eli some imaginary cake) "Here you go..."
Eli (Looking dumbfounded) "Stupid!" (Which is a word we're not even allowed to say in our house but in this case seemed completely apt.)

See if boys are gonna use their imagination to play they will fully commit to it they'll be a dinosaur or Spiderman, crash cars or blow stuff up they're just not concerned in the slightest about kissing Princesses and having pretend cakes. To boys those things are dull.

Recently I took the boys to the park and on arrival found a little girl there with her older brother. He had obviously been forced by a parent to watch her and was doing so really grudgingly. Emily as she informed me instantly was 'almost 5' (such a mature age) so felt the need to help babysit my kids. Now I'm never gonna argue with an offer like that so I sat down in the sun and observed her babysitting skills from afar.

This is what I learned....

Girls are really flaming bossy!

It was all 'You do this' and 'It's not your turn' and 'You stand there' I was totally amused and the boys didn't seem in the least bit bothered and were thrilled by her attention so I happily let her carry on.

Eventually Thomas picked up his football,
"You play football with me?"
"No football is for babies, I know a much better game!"

From my observations of the much better (and totally made up) game it involved constant changing of the rules to enable Emily to win every single time and lots of accidentally on purpose throwing the ball over the park fence resulting in only her being able to retrieve it because she was after all almost 5 years old.

And lastly, boys toys are supremely superior to girls toys. I had to go shopping for a gift for Rob's niece and was appalled by the endless array of items formed mostly of hideous pink plastic. It took me forever to find something suitable and I was even half tempted to get her some Lego or cars. I know that's what I would prefer to play with (and do so on a daily basis).

So there you have it boys are best, contradict me if you dare!

Of course now I am fully and joyfully converted to Mothering boys our next child will no doubt be a girl and I'll be forced to endure endless imaginary tea parties, pink plastic toys, carefully coordinated clothing and bossiness.

Good job I don't believe in Karma!

For Heidi.....

My friend Heidi who is one of my favourite people in all the world not to mention totally hilarious (I have to suck up to some degree because she may never forgive me for this post!) has an incredibly morbid fear of both alligators and crocodiles. I'm OK with that we all have our fears, right?

With Gladiators back on TV Rob and Thomas have adopted it as 'their show' (which is an improvement on The Simpson's at least I guess, Bart isn't the best role model after all. But then again adults beating the living daylights out of each other is hardly a vast improvement either).

Thomas looks forward to it all week long.

All we hear is........

"Is Alligators on yet?"

So there you have it, Heidi, I may very well have ruined Gladiators for you forever.

I hope one day you can find it in your heart to forgive me.

On the Mend

Rob has been away in Scotland with work this week and so my mum came to stay with us. As I have previously mentioned this is one of my favourite things ever, ever, ever. I don't think I changed one nappy all week long, I even managed a nap on Thursday morning and when on Monday morning Eli decided to wake up at the disgustingly unacceptable time of 6:30am which to me is still very much night time (I'm truly spoiled because I feel hard done to if my kids ever wake up before 8am) she dealt with him and sent me back to bed for two more lovely hours. Did I want her to ever leave? Absolutely not!

While my mum was here we took a trip to the local(ish!) farm with some friends and the kids had a marvelous time. You'll see from the pictures a broken appendage isn't interfering with Thomas and his lifestyle whatsoever.

On Tuesday we had to go to the hospital to see the orthopaedic doctor for a check-up. The problem (apart from it being crappily inefficient) with free health care like we have here in the UK is that they totally judge you on appearance. I'll give you an example, me turning up without Rob with two children who don't look alike (I was once asked in Burger King if they had different fathers due to the lack of brotherly resemblance, now I obviously avoid Burger King) would get me pigeon holed as the following.......a single promiscuous mother. Now I have nothing against single promiscuous mothers I just would prefer not to be labelled as such.

So Tuesday came and we had plans to go to the farm so I made sure to shower and fully apply my make up and actually style my hair so that I could give the kids a good old clean with baby wipes (how did people survive before the invention of baby wipes?) and arrive at the hospital from the farm a perfect picture of wholesome family life.

But things don't always go to plan do they? Somehow Thomas got totally filthy and cut his leg open, then getting home took longer than I'd anticipated so we were running late for our appointment. I pulled onto the drive got him a clean T shirt and a wet cloth to wipe off the dry blood from his leg. By this time of course he was completely comatose not to mention incredibly sweaty. I woke him up at the hospital and changed his top only to realise the clean T shirt I picked up didn't match his shorts at all. I thought for some reason he had blue shorts on but they were brown (yes, my brain is damaged). The T shirt totally clashed with the brown shorts. There was my three year old wearing uncoordinated clothes, with wet sweaty hair and a broken arm, but he was at least clean. Well, apart from half of the farm that was embedded under his fingernails. I had to swallow my pride and go in regardless.

We were waiting to be called in to see the doctor when my mum tells me she has to make a phone call and she'd take Eli with her but could I hold her newspaper? I agreed grudgingly. My mum's newspaper is the kind that has very little if any news, mostly deeply salacious gossip and even a topless beauty on page 3. Hardly the perfect picture of wholesome family life that I was hoping to exude. Obviously we got called in while I was in possession of this newspaper. Between that and Thomas' appearance I am pretty sure we secured the tag of total white trash. I may as well have not showered or done my hair after all.

But on a more positive note his arm is healing excellently and he gets to have the plaster removed two whole weeks early, roll on next Tuesday. When obviously we'll all be immaculately groomed and I am making Rob come so the doctor is fully aware that he at least has a father.

Perspective Restored

Lately I've been constantly whining (because I like to) about potentially having to potty train Eli.

What is worse than having to potty train a two year old child who pulls poo out of his nappy?

Having to Potty train two year old quads that pull poo out of their nappies despite vigorous efforts with duct tape to stop them.

That blog is where I go when I have a bad parenting day. When I consider multiplying Eli by four for even a second I realise even my worst day with Eli is likely gonna be better than my very best day with quads.

So I will potty train Eli......but not today, or tomorrow nor probably this month. But I will do it!

Desperately Seeking Truth

The Blogging strike is now officially over!

It is time to finally put the naughty spot behind us (but I hope you all learned a very valuable lesson!!) or else we may just have to do it all over again. Rob was away in Scotland most of this week with work (and sadly where Rob goes the laptop must surely follow) so my blogging strike was inevitable but I figured I'd use it to my advantage by sending you all on a little guilt trip. You gotta love guilt, it is such a motivator! I know as a parent I feel guilty pretty much constantly about one thing or another and it really keeps me going.

You know when we had Thomas lots of our close friends were having first babies right around the same time so obviously our second babies followed a similar pattern also. My friend Lisa and I who were both pregnant with our second child (Lisa's were 12 months apart and mine 16 months) were chatting about the daunting prospect of juggling two really small children. I passed comment on another couple at church who had in recent months welcomed a second child into their home (18 months apart) and appeared to be coping fantastically well, taking the transition in their stride. We both felt happily reassured that it can't be as difficult as we were imagining and that we were just being dramatic. We were pregnant after all.

Reassurance came to a sudden and ferocious halt when I relayed this conversation to the father who had just welcomed a second son into their home. I explained how we had felt reassured when we realised how easy the transition had been for them.

Then he said this (which isn't anything like what he said at all but it is my interpretation and how I heard it at the time),

"It is not an easy transition at all, it is the most impossibly hard thing we have ever encountered, we don't know if we're coming or going or even what day of the week it is. Take all your fears about having two children to care for at once and multiply it by a trillion and you might be somewhere near reality"

Me (hopefully) "But you make it appear so easy?!"

"Of course we do we don't want people thinking we're terrible parents who can't cope."

Obviously I spiralled into a frenzy of total panic that resulted in me having two kids, wearing PJ's 24/7 and not showering nearly often enough for months on end. Long gone where the blissful days of napping when my baby napped and having free time and I desperately wanted them back.

With our 'baby' recently turning two and frequent showers firmly back on my agenda at last it is time to seriously consider adding another to our family. But 3 just seems like a lot of kids. I know plenty of you have had 3 and survived so come on voice of experience how bad is it? Seriously!

In the mean time I'll dig out the PJ's and heavy duty deodorant for when the time comes just in case.

I'm Putting YOU on the Naughty Spot!

You may remember how I previously mentioned I am a huge advocate of Supernanny and her Naughty Spot technique. In recent months it is even working supremely (not to mention frequently) well with Eli. I find it really gets the point across with my kids, both simply and effectively. Plus Eli has outgrown the stage where he would loudly mock cry and attempt to sit on Thomas the whole time he was on the naughty spot. Which Thomas clearly didn't really appreciate at all (though I did find it quietly hilarious).

So this leads me to the point of my post today. The nice people at Sitemeter recently sent me an email saying my blog had attracted 1700 visitors in the few months that I have been blogging. Obviously for a second I felt so incredibly special. Then reality sadly kicked in. If my blog has had 1700 visits then why oh why has it only had 182 comments? (Yes, I did count all of them specifically to reinforce my point and it was worth every single mundane second!)

Now I am happy to consider the point that sometimes people check my blog only to find it hasn't been updated recently, hence no new posts to comment on. But seeming as I generally blog thrice weekly or so I'll divide the 1700 visits by the 7 days in a week and multiply by 3 (I know I am a maths genius!) to determine that 728 times whenever someone checked my blog they would have been greeted by a brand new somewhat spectacular post.

I am not considering that what you read on my blog didn't deserve comment, that is not even possible. Especially considering I generally neglect keeping my house clean to update my blog (which I hasten to add is a very small sacrifice).

Commenting by the way could not be easier:

• You don't need a Google/Blogger Account,
• You can simply choose the name option and input your actual name,
• Or else you can do what Rob does and leave anonymous comments and claim it wasn't you,
• You don't even have to be someone I know, frankly I am more than happy for anyone to read and comment about my endless ramblings on life. (BTW I know you're out there because those nice Sitemeter peeps let me know location and pages visited of every single person who visits my humble blog!)

So somehow I am missing 546 comments. Well that is naughty behaviour if ever I saw it!

Therefore.....

I am putting you on the naughty spot.

I am even dispensing with Supernanny's preferred manner of providing a warning to allow people a chance to change their behaviour. She says when behaviour is serious enough to warrant it skip the warning and get straight to the discipline. You have to be cruel to be kind after all you see.

(In a stern tone) You people haven't been commenting on my blog like you should and it is simply just not acceptable behaviour. Now you can sit there for x minutes (x being a minute for every year of your life, so for some of you that's a really LOOOOONG time).

So there you have it, while you're on the naughty spot thinking about what you have done (or failed to do in this instance) I am going on strike! No more blogging for me until previously mentioned behaviour is fully rectified!

I need apologies, hugs and kisses people! Then I'll happily forgive and blog on.

But until then 'Au Revoir' while I go cry into my pillow about not feeling the love.

An Alteration

Remember all those lovely things I said about Eli on his Birthday?

Well I want to amend something.

I said 'Can I keep him this size forever?'

What I actually should have said was 'Can I keep him this size forever but fully potty trained?'

Too frequently lately if we don't get to him the very second a poo is deposited in his nappy we are alerted to the fact not by the awful stench but by the fact he has put his hands in it and proudly come to show us his good work or my personal favourite the time he pulled his poo out of his nappy and threw it on the kitchen floor. I SO didn't sign up for this.

Clearly it is time to invest in some heavy duty tape or some other desperate measure, because I am definitely not up for giving potty training a try.

Personally I find poo on the floor preferable to potty training.

The Bad Parenting Chronicles: Episode 6

Can you imagine how bad it looks (not to mention super neglectful) to lose your recently broken armed child at the Children's Museum?

Can you imagine how pitiful and sad they would look sitting there with an arm in plaster at the desk waiting to be collected?

Can you imagine how the workers would look at you as if to say Why don't you love this child?

I can!

Apparently I have officially reached a new parenting low point.

Rude Awakening

How do you know when it is no longer acceptable to be naked in front of your three year old child (like I have much of a choice)?

"Mummy, you have NAKED BUTTOCKS!"

Need I say more?

(I wish I could say this is my first experience of such an encounter, but the others just sadly aren't appropriate for sharing.)

The Sweetest Thing Ever

When Thomas was at the hospital we palmed Eli off on Deb (Rob's mum) and Emma (Rob's sister) which obviously he simply adored. What two year old doesn't love undivided attention and someone catering to their every whim? (In fact what fully grown adult wouldn't love that? I know I'd happily sign up.) He certainly doesn't experience such luxuries at home.

But Eli has never been without Thomas, when he was born he had a 16 month old big brother and apart from the odd hour here or there, happy about it or not, they are always together. Eli has never woken up to Thomas not being right there. They're brothers and essentially they are really best friends.

While we were waiting (what felt like a million sleep deprived years) for Thomas to be discharged Emma showed up with Eli. Thomas was playing in the ward playroom and when he and Eli saw each other they just approached each other and embraced. There they stood in the middle of the playroom hugging.

In that moment all of my memories of how flaming hard it was to have my boys 16 months apart quickly melted away and were replaced with a conviction that it was all totally worth it.

I wish I had a camera to record that precious moment. Instead I had to suffice with a mental picture.

I am so glad I have that mental image because within five minutes of being reunited at home of course the serenity was replaced with bickering and scuffling, but my precious mental image is getting me through.

It's Official

Yesterday Rob had the day off because he was going to see Foo Fighters (Yes, his life is vastly more exciting than mine) and amongst other things he decided to give our bedroom some TLC. It is a really neglected space, used only for sleeping and dumping. The furniture needed shifting around to maximise the space and make everything feel a little less cluttered.

In the process the bed has ended up with Rob's side up against the wall, which has the bonus of increasing the space in our room but the distinct un-bonus of making me the only available parent whenever a child visits our room. Generally they come straight to me anyhow but at least the option of daddy was available so occasionally (the sweetest moments of life) I was off the hook, now it's all just me, lucky me!

After Rob was finished I was taking Thomas to the toilet (thanks to his broken arm he can no longer get on and off unaided) and our bedroom door was open.

"WOW, look at your tidy room!"

Initially I thought he was just impressed by the change in layout, it does after all look so much better. But now that repeat identical comments are in double figures (from our 8000 toilet trips, and we're only on Day 4 of broken arm) I have come to the assumption that even he noticed the disaster zone that our bedroom constantly was.

A three year old will always tell it how it is,

We are slobs!

Thanks for the confirmation.

But this does come from the bizarre child who just turned down chocolate because "I'm a bit busy tidying my room (yes, even with one arm) right now" and couldn't possibly pause for a chocolate break. Clearly he is more like Grandma Deb than we thought.

Oh and don't worry the chocolate didn't go to waste I happily paused from my chores to eat it.

Uh-Oh!

Remember how I was just bragging about my 'gift'? Well my gift totally failed me! Or I failed my gift, not sure which!

This last week was half term and as a general rule I try to be pretty low key with the boys because all the places we'd normally go to are infested with much bigger kids (my 'gift' just tells me it's likely to end in tears). By Friday we were all incredibly stir crazy seeming as the weather had been poor all week long. Our local playgym is just on the next street but most people park on our street to go there (yes, that is annoying!) but it does mean I can tell how busy it is likely to be just by sticking my head out of the front door and looking down the street. Easy! I like easy!

On Friday our street was virtually car-less so I decided to wait until later in the afternoon and go let the kids run wild for a couple of hours. Luck seemed to be shining on us because for a holiday week it was very quiet with only a few older kids. Perfect. I sat and chatted with my friend and the kids happily played. Bliss!

An hour or so later two bigger kids were driving a plastic car down a slide into the ball pool. They thought it was fun. My 'gift' kicked in and I thought how incredibly dangerous it was, especially if they hit another child, this playgym is generally for the under 5's and these kids were about 8. I couldn't see their parents anywhere but I knew they weren't supposed to have any toys in the actual playgym let alone driving a car down a slide. That's just a recipe for disaster, right?

After a while I saw Thomas loitering because he wanted to go down the slide, not in the death slide manner the bigger kids were, just in the normal bog standard manner that I am sure we've all enjoyed from time to time.

The next thing I know Thomas is clambering on the car at the top of the slide and my 'gift' is in full force and I am off my chair in a flash. It is amazing how fast you can move when your child is in danger. I called to him and he turned to look at me with a huge smile on his face, brimming with excitement. I managed to tell him to get off because it was too dangerous, and he attempted to but when he moved the wheels slipped and he was off head first down the slide. I guess that'll happen when you put wheels in close proximity to a slide.

He got just about half the way down before he was launched off face down into the ball pool, the car landing eventually on top of him. (I say eventually because it seemed to take forever for me but it was in reality just seconds, endangered child time goes really really slowly.) I pulled the car off of him and gave those bigger kids a very brief piece of my mind. Thomas was really upset, mostly shocked.

Then I saw his arm. His forearm was bent exactly like a banana. It was horrifying. Clarity hit instantly and I knew it was broken. He stopped crying and just held his arm at the break.

I called Rob and got him to collect us and left (leaving Eli in the care of my friend, thanks Dawn for being so brilliant!), but not before making sure the parents of the bigger kids were fully aware of the results of their children's actions. It made me feel a tiny bit better.

At the hospital they confirmed a break of both the Radius and Ulna, not a pretty break either. He had to go to Surgery to have general anaesthetic to have it manipulated back into place. They gave him a healthy dose of Morphine which worked wonders. (I did enquire if it was available should I have another baby, I was told no due to the effect it'd have on the baby, but I think that's a small price to pay for that quality and speed of pain relief.) Sadly he couldn't go to Surgery until the next day due to an emergency trauma they had to deal with first. So he and I spent the night in a ward that hadn't been modernised since the hospital was built in the 50's. Not pretty. Considering I slept in my clothes I wasn't too pretty either or clean.

Saturday Morning he went to surgery and took it all in his stride (but like I have said before that is just Thomas). It is policy at our hospital that you're not allowed into recovery until the patient is fully conscious and so he woke up surrounded by strangers in an unfamiliar place but was unfazed. Rob went in to get him and he came out sitting up on a trolley all perky and totally happy. Then we just had to wait a million years to get discharged.

He has a cast on for the next 6 weeks from his shoulder to his hand. I guess that'll serve as a terrific reminder as to why I don't go to the playgym in the school holidays when it is infested with bigger kids.

I'll never cease to be amazed at how resilient kids are. I asked Thomas to do something yesterday, I can't even recall what I asked but I can perfectly recall his response:

"I can't, I'm not very well Mummy, my arm is broken!"

I expect I'll be hearing plenty of that these next 6 weeks.